Year two of the Tom Crean Indiana rebuilding effort brought incremental improvement to Bloomington—the Hoosiers bumped their overall win total from six to 10 and their conference win total from one to four. These weren’t monumental changes, but it’s important to remember that the program was reduced to rubble when Crean arrived. The 2009-10 Hoosiers showed signs of competitiveness, including wins over tournament teams Pittsburgh and Minnesota, but the overall picture still wasn’t pretty. Indiana’s nonconference losses still included truly bad teams like Boston University, George Mason, and Loyola Maryland. In Big Ten play, Indiana lost to Iowa twice and posted an efficiency margin of -0.19 points per possession—dead last in the conference and just barely better than in Crean’s first season (-0.20 points per possession).

Surely, Indiana would have shown more Big Ten improvement if not for the season-ending injury just 12 games in to freshman Maurice Creek. To that point, the 6-5 Creek had posted an outstanding nonconference campaign with an offensive rating of 127 on a very heavy shot diet (Creek took 30 percent of Indiana’s shots while on the floor). He shot 45 percent from three, 61 percent from two, and even posted nice assist and turnover rates. Some of Creek’s performance, undoubtedly, was helped by Indiana’s weak nonconference schedule (309^th nationally), but his 31-point outburst against Kentucky showed that he wasn’t just beating up on the Howards of the world. When Creek was lost, a huge chunk of Indiana’s offense was sidelined with him.

The Hoosiers got promising play from some other freshmen as well—Christian Watford struggled from the field (37 percent on twos in Big Ten play), but he showed enough in other areas to suggest he’ll be an important part of Indiana’s rebuilding. Watford got to the line at a nice clip, where he shot 80 percent, and he showed good enough rebounding to hang in at the power forward spot. Jordan Hulls was efficient—if a little gunshy—hitting 39 percent from three while taking a light 16 percent shot diet. The 6-0 Hulls wasn’t much of a point guard as a freshman (assist rate of just 10 percent), but he showed a knack for knocking down shots. Derek Elston also had a productive first season, crashing the glass with aplomb and staying active on the defensive end (solid steal and block rates). The 6-9 forward didn’t shoot particularly well (47 percent on twos, 29 percent on threes), but he too showed promise for the future. In a season that was clearly not going to result in postseason play, the development of the freshmen had to be encouraging.

Sophomore Verdell Jones showed great improvement in his playmaking ability in his second go-round as a Big Ten point guard—Jones’ turnover rate dropped precipitously (28 percent to 19 percent), and he maintained a solid assist rate (27 percent, fifth highest in the conference). Jones was also forced to be a go-to scorer at times for the Hoosiers, and his shooting percentages suffered as a result. He still was able to be somewhat efficient due to his playmaking skills and ability to get to the foul line—Jones led the Big Ten in free throw attempts and makes.

The other point guard on the roster (at least in terms of assist rate) was junior Georgetown transfer Jeremiah Rivers. We Geeks caught a bit of flak for not expecting much out of Rivers prior to last season (we showed him 10^th on our roster breakdown and mentioned him only once in our preview), but the numbers ended up backing our assumptions. Rivers shot an awful 34 percent on twos and posted the Big Ten’s highest turnover rate (33 percent). He did grab a good number of steals, but it takes some incredible defense to overcome offensive numbers like that. A reduced role off the bench should be more appropriate for Rivers, and the development of the young talent should allow for that.

Collectively, Indiana showed some of the same issues that plagued them the previous season. Turnovers continued to be the biggest problem, while field goal accuracy was also still subpar. Inexplicably, the Hoosiers remained among the nation’s worst in terms of getting their shots blocked. A big part of this is a conscious effort to go to the basket, blocked shots be damned, but it’s still strange to see a team with a fair amount of height end up so close to the national cellar in this category. All things considered, 2009-10 is about what should have been expected from a program rebuilding from zero—small improvements on both ends of the court, but no great leaps. Whether those leaps will occur in 2010-11 is an issue we’ll leave for our preview post.

- Posted by Mike Portscheller